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TOLEDO — A state prison beset by a rise in violence, including four fatal attacks on inmates in
13 months, has stopped accepting some new prisoners.

The change that took effect last week is aimed at cutting down on the number of prisoners who
share a cell, state prisons department spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said.

Violence at the Toledo Correctional Institution soared after the facility started doubling up
prisoners in the same cell to deal with overcrowding beginning in 2011.

The latest fatal attack came early this month, when investigators said a man serving a 40-year
sentence for attempted murder and robbery was attacked by his cellmate.

The decision to stop accepting some prisoners already had been in the works before that killing,
Smith said.

The facility stopped taking prisoners who are classified as “level-three” and are double-bunked,
but it will continue to add higher-security prisoners who are housed in a one-person cell, she
said.

In addition, about 60 prisoners have been reclassified and will be moved to lower-security
facilities, she said.

The moves, which will reduce but not eliminate double-bunking at Toledo, are in response to the
violence, Smith said. The prison system also has hired a consultant to help corrections officials
in Toledo review operations and make any needed changes.

A report by a legislative committee said in September that prisoner-on-prisoner and
prisoner-on-staff assaults in Toledo jumped between 2010 and 2012. The report also said the state
prison has Ohio’s highest rates of inmate drug use, prisoner homicides and staff turnover.

The prisons department said the state has hired nine new guards, increased monitoring of
disruptive prisoners and boosted camera surveillance.

Warden Ed Sheldon said this year that the percentage increase of prisoner-on-prisoner assaults
mostly mirrored the rate of increase in the prison population. As the facility added 350 prisoners
since 2011, the number of assaults also increased.